Fall back this weekend, but change could be brewing
Sunday’s end to daylight saving time is an easier transition for most Americans than its March beginning, a return of the hour stolen silently overnight in a decadeslong attempt to extend the sun’s reach.
But a growing movement is rising against the forced time changes with proposed bills and a rabble of bloggers bent on dismantling a system they say is unnecessary, unhealthy and built on a propaganda campaign so successful many still believe farmers are to blame for the twice-annual clock changes.
In Massachusetts this week, a special commission assembled to review the effects of keeping daylight saving time year-round acknowledged the benefits — fewer drowsy workers, drivers and students in the spring, less crime in winter when darkness falls before rush hour — but stopped short of recommending a full-blown
rebellion without surrounding states on board.
“I hope the Massachusetts commission recommendations will further the discussion in Maine and other
New England states, as well as across the country, to ask why do we keep doing this?” said Maine Rep. Donna Bailey, a Democrat who proposed a change last year that would have ended the twice-annual clock resets. “I have yet to receive a good answer to that question.”
In Michigan, a bill that would have kept the state on day light saving time failed to gain much ground this year. It also would have moved the entire state to the Eastern Time Zone, including the four counties in the Upper Peninsula that are now in the Central Time Zone. New Mexico in March had a
bill pass the full Senate that would “lock the clocks” on daylight saving time, but it
died in the House.
And in Florida , the so - called “Sunshine Pro-tection Act” was pushed at least four times during legislative sessions, including in 2016 by Rep. Kristin Jacobs, D-Coconut Creek. Despite the promise of sunlit early evenings to enjoy Florida’s mild wintertime weather, it failed quietly without a single committee vote.
Still, Scott Yates, an entrepreneur who runs a blog dedicated to preserving daylight saving time year round, said the willingness to propose legislation represents a shift from stalwart acceptance of the practice.
Yates, who has testified in a handful of state hearings on the subject, said 24 states had bills in 2016 that addressed the issue. When he started blogging about it in 2013, there were just a handful of states with lawmakers willing to take it on.
“It’s a step forward,” Yates said about the Massachusetts report. “It furthers the cause. If someone snuck in and changed your clock, you’d be so mad, but the government does it to us twice a year and we’re just like, ‘Oh, OK, I get it, it’s the farmers.’ ”
To be sure, not everyone dislikes the changeover.
With the signs of autumn in South Florida being so subtle, West Palm Beach resident Cristl Story said the earlier sunsets make it feel more like fall.
“I think the change is nice,” she said Thursday morning while walking her dog in the 7 a.m. predawn darkness. “I tend to wind down a little earlier, it’s like, OK, it’s time to stop working.”
Anne and Craig Truscott, also early-rising West Palm Beach residents, feel similarly.
“We are excited to have
the extra time in the morning,” Anne Truscott said. “We don’t love the dark afternoons, but it’s a trade-offffffffffff.”
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 extended the length of daylight saving time to eight months, from the sec- ond Sunday in March to the
fifirst Sunday in November. It went into effffffffffffect in 2007.
The change means daylight saving time eclipses so-called standard time, and for most people with strong feelings about the issue, it’s a matter of either extending daylight saving year-round or just ending the twice annual
clock changes, Yates said. “I think the tide is really starting to turn,” Yates said.
“But all of this is governed by the Transportation Department, which seems weird
until you look at the history.” Time zones were set up nearly 150 years ago by the railroads with lines drawn to try and put major cities at the center of the zones. Population shifts meant more people began living in the
far northeast and far northwest, and as decisions were made to preserve daylight in urban areas, train schedules followed suit, said Michael Downing, who wrote the book “Spring Forward, the
Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time.”
The fifirst nationwide daylight saving time law was passed in 1918 as an energy-saving measure during World War I. But it was also supported by Boston-area department store owner Lincoln Filene, who compiled a list of the benefifits of daylight saving time, including that “most farm products are better when gathered with dew on.”
“This was news to farmers,” said Downing, who believes the true reason for the 1918 change was that the retail, leisure and sports industry saw benefits to daylight saving time.
Farmers disliked daylight saving time because they needed the sun to dry dew from their crops before they could harvest them and take them to market. But more daylight after work meant more time to shop, play golf and go to baseball games.
By the early 1960s, states and municipalities were allowed to opt in or out of daylight saving time and decide on their own start and stop dates. That led to
widespread confusion, with one infamous example of a bus route from West Virginia to Ohio that included seven time changes.
In 1966, Congress approved the Uniform Time Act, which included a stan
dard requirement on daylight saving time. States were allowed to exempt themselves from the requirement as long as the entire state did so. Today, Arizona, Hawaii and Puerto Rico do not recognize daylight saving time.
Despite state attempts to stay on daylight saving time, Yates said it will likely take another federal change to make it permanent.
And there’s one thing no one can change.
“Peopl e don’t want to be told that, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere, there is always going to be less available daylight in the winter,” Downing said. “No amount of clock manipulation is going to change that.”